“Here comes dad.”
My dad came up the stairs and met us at the top landing. His face and neck and hands were dark tanned to the shirt line; against the rest of him they looked purple in the dim light. He had black hair on his bare chest and he was smiling.
“So the vigilantes are up too,” he said.
“This is not the time for your jokes,” my mother said. “What does that man want?”
“You mean Lyman Goodnough.”
“I know who it is. What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing particular. He’s just discovered he has something like a backbone.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“He wants a lift into town.”
My mother looked at my dad as if he was talking utter nonsense, as if she still thought he was trying to be funny. “Now?” she said. “At this hour? Whatever for?”
“He wants to catch the train. He’s leaving.”
“But that’s ridiculous. He can’t do anything. Where can he go?”
“He can go west, I suppose,” my dad said. “That’s the direction the train is headed in.”
“West,” she said. It sounded foolish and obscene in her mouth. “Well, I hope you had the sense to tell him no.”
“No, I told him I would. I come upstairs to get my shirt and boots on.”
“Are you insane?”
“Probably,” my dad said. “And I’m getting cold standing here talking about it.” He turned to go back to their bedroom.
“Dad,” I said. “I want to go.”
“Get dressed then.”
“He’s not going. You’re not going,” my mother said.
But she wasn’t even looking at me. She followed my dad into the bedroom, and I followed her down the hallway and stood in the door. My dad went over to the closet and took a flannel shirt off a hanger. She watched him as if it was a conspiracy against her, as if he and Lyman Goodnough had decided to get up a plot. With one hand fisted at the neck of her maroon robe, she watched him unbutton his pants and begin to tuck his shirt in.
“Will you tell me,” she said, “why that man can’t at least drive himself to town?”
“Yes, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“Of course not. I don’t like any of this. But I assume you mean it’s something more than just the fact that he can’t get his own car started.”
“He never tried it,” my dad said. “He’s afraid if he starts the car it’ll wake the old man.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, that does make sense, doesn’t it. He can’t wake his own father but it’s perfectly all right to wake us.”
“I said you weren’t going to like it.”
“Yes, you did say so and you are right about that. But what about her? What about his sister? I suppose she’s afraid to disturb the poor old man too.”
My dad stopped dressing then and looked at my mother. He wasn’t happy. “Leave her out of this,” he said.
“Or hasn’t she learned how to drive a car at night yet? I’ve never seen her driving a car at night.”
“Keep your mouth off her,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I know more than you think I do.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“All right,” my mother said, looking at me in the doorway. “I’ve had enough for one night. I’m going to bed.”
“That’s right,” my dad said. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“And you are too,” she said to me.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m going along. Dad, you said—”
“I told you to get dressed,” he said.
“No. That’s definitely out. He’s not going.”
“It won’t hurt him.”
“He’s not going,” she said. “He has school tomorrow. He’s no Edison, or haven’t you noticed?”
“It won’t hurt him. And he can still make school.”
“I don’t want him to go with you. I forbid him to go.”
“I believe he’s going, though.”